Selfie
by Solarr-Eclipse
Summary: Selfie: a form of expression that involves taking a picture of yourself, with or without others, to post onto social media or to keep for yourself. Also, a great way of recording that time you and your big sister travelled around the world.
1. Tower

_1\. Tower_

This has _got_ to be the pinnacle of my life right now.

I'm standing, unharnessed, at the edge of the highest point on the CN Tower. The wind flows through my pigtails and tries to push me off the skywalk, but I stand my ground and don't move an inch. The rush of excitement I'm feeling, the beautiful city horizon on my right and the vast expanse of Lake Ontario on my left… It's all so much to take in, but it feels so _good_. This is the kind of stuff I came here for, for the thrills and adventure and just plain _fun_.

I can't let this moment go to waste. Taking out my cell phone, I snap picture after picture, making sure to capture everything within my view in its lenses. I get some with me in them as well, because what good would a photo album be without a few selfies? Later on in my life I'll look back at these and reminisce about the time Emma and I walked along the outside of the CN Tower's tip and lived to tell the tale.

" _Kitty!_ Quit fooling around and get moving!"

…Oh right. Emma.

I look over my shoulder to see my older sister, about halfway between me and the curve of the tower, sending a glare my way and waiting for me to quicken my pace. "What's the hurry?" I call back to her over the wind. "The prize money isn't going anywhere, and there's still eighteen teams left! We've got plenty of time!"

It's true, even if Emma is too stubborn to see it. There's even four teams left at the base of the tower who still need to make it to the top, so we have… five minutes at least. We don't need to 'get moving' when we still have a few moments to spare.

And as always, Ms. Future-Lawyer isn't having any of it. "Why would you say that?! The farther we are, the better our chances at the million! If you end up getting us eliminated because you were spacing out and taking selfies again I swear-"

"Jeez, Emma, calm down and relax!" I try to tell her, resulting in a huff of hot air from her. "I mean, when's the next time we'll be out at the top of the CN Tower of all places?! Answer: _never!_ "

"Which is fine by me!" she calls back, slowly inching her way towards me.

"Oh, come on!" I say to her and look back over the city landscape. "Do you not see how amazing this is?! Appreciate it more and live a little!"

It was at that time that a particularly strong gust of wind came blasting its way past us, and during that particular time I'd accidentally put my foot a _little_ too close to the edge. The wind pushed me and I lost my footing, almost causing me to plummet to the ground. Thankfully, I was saved by Emma, a panicked by serious look in her eye.

Pulling me back up to my feet, she scowled and kept tugging me down the skywalk. "Right, 'live a little'," she says. "Make sure they put that quote on your gravestone."

I laugh at the irony of the situation. "That was a fluke!" I tell her, allowing her to continue to drag me. "But thank you all the same!"

My sister groans and doesn't stop. "How about you try being useful for a change and keep up? The last thing we need is being the first eliminated because you decided to have an impromptu date with the _ground_."

"Sure, Sis, I'll try my best," I reply absently and quickly take a picture of the two of us together. It'd be better if she was looking and smiling and _wasn't_ yanking me around the tower but still, it's one of the best ones I've got of the two of us in recent memory! It has to be good for something!


	2. Zipline

_2\. Zipline_

Even though it's been on my bucket list for years, ziplining is something I've never been able to do. Every time I've had the opportunity to go, something would always happen that forces me to cancel at the last second. Either that, or Emma would be too busy 'studying for a test' or something whenever I'd ask her when none of my friends could go, and besides, what's the point of going by yourself? And ever since the, ah… basement incident, I've never had the funds to actually be able to go anymore because I kept trying (and am still trying) to pay back my parents, so it was pretty much all for naught at that point.

Now, I can happily cross it off the list, and I didn't have to pay a cent!

Emma chose to hold onto the handlebar on the way down, and asked me to – sorry, no, _told_ me to – reach up and grab the Travel Tip while holding on to her. I don't really mind that, anyway. Besides, I can shamelessly admit that she probably has more upper body strength than me. If _I_ had to carry both of us down, we'd _so_ be falling into the water.

Reaching out to grab the tip wasn't tough at all, mainly because I had wrapped my legs around Emma's waist and was using her hips as a sort of seat. I didn't even have to use the bar to hold on! I… don't think Emma was all too thrilled about me doing that, but we got the Tip so it shouldn't matter!

Leaning into her back as far as I could, I turn my phone towards the two of us. "Smile for the camera, Em!" I take the shot, even though Emma was doing anything _but_ smiling. Seriously, that scowl could kill someone.

"Wow, what a great idea," she scoffs. "Take a picture while we're going down a zipline at fifty kilometers an hour! Not my fault if you fall off. At least then the fish would have someone to take selfies with."

"Feels more like sixty kilometers."

"I really don't care."

Another few seconds pass, and we land on a few mattresses to stop our fall. Not the most comfortable way to land, but hey, it worked. The rush of the zipline is still in me though, so I do the only sensible thing to do and holler in joy.

"Woo!" I jump up from the mattresses and land on the ground. "We should do that again!"

"You're crazy if you think we're going back up there," Emma notes, removing her helmet and walking up to me. "What does the Tip say?"

"Oh, right." In all of the excitement I kinda forgot about that. "It says we have to catch the next flight to… Morocco!" I shout once again. "New country, here we come!"

"This isn't a _party_ , Kitty," Emma says through gritted teeth. "This is a _competition_. Remember that."

"Yeah, yeah, I get you." I stuff the Tip in my pocket and remove my own helmet before offering it to Don, standing not too far from the mattresses. "You take these, right?"

He motions to a cardboard box by his feet, already having… _six_ pairs of helmets in them. "Emma and Kitty, you ladies are the seventh team to arrive at the airstrip," he announces. So there really _are_ six teams ahead of us! Nailed it! "Unfortunately for you that means, unless you can get to the check-in counter before the Reality TV Pros, you'll be the first to board flight number _two_ , which leaves exactly thirty minutes from flight one."

"Thirty minutes?! Ohh, no no no, we are _not_ letting that happen." Emma grabs onto my arm and, just like at the top of the tower, starts dragging me towards the airport.

"Is this really necessary?" I ask her, noticing Ellody and Mary crash into the mattresses and sneaking a quick pic of them.

"For getting on the first flight, and guaranteeing us a decent shot at first?" she asks without turning around. "Um, _yes!_ "

I sigh and roll my eyes. "Shoulda figured." Then again, maybe getting on it isn't such a bad idea. If we _don't_ , I won't be hearing the end of it from dear ol' Sis.


	3. Spices

_3\. Spices_

"Cumin… cumin… Oh, which one are you?"

As Emma frets over which pot holds the cumin, I take my own look over the spices before us. They're all different colors with different smells and held in different containers, all with no labels, so unless you had a background in cooking you were pretty much guaranteed to get it wrong.

Thankfully, I _do_ have a background in cooking. …Or, well, _some_. Not much. …Just barely. I can make a mean stack of pancakes, though! Buuut the only time I think I've ever had to deal with spices when I was at a friend's house years ago, and even then I don't really remember which ones were used.

Despite that, I take my time looking over the pots on my side of the kiosk. It's an All-In, after all, so both members of the team need to be participating in the challenge. And also, the teams from flight three aren't even here yet, so there's plenty of time!

I lean forward and sniff lightly, making sure to not pull any powder up my nose. None of these spices smell very familiar, but I still go over them all…We already have cinnamon, so this pot's useless to me… this one's definitely curry, but we don't even _need_ it for the challenge… and this one's-

Wait, this one. This one here, the golden brown stuff. I sniff once more, a bit harder this time, and the smell… well, I can't remember this smell. Maybe I used it before? I dunno. But it just smells _right_ for some reason. And I can trust my intuition. Always have, always will.

"Hey, Emma?" I call out to her, getting her attention. "I think it's this one."

Emma begins to say something back, but we get distracted by the sounds of screeching tires. Not far down the street, the rest of the teams start pouring out of taxis and racing towards us. Dang! Guess we didn't have as much time as I thought.

"Now's not the time for guessing games, Kit!" Emma declares and goes back to her own side. Glancing over every single pot on her side, she finally huffs and guesses, "I don't know, this one?"

…Wait, what? Something's screwy with that logic.

"Hang on, let me get this straight," I say, walking over to her as she accepts the bag of mystery spice from the kiosk guy. "You can guess but I can't?"

"That's because mine's an _educated_ guess, obviously," she says with that self-satisfying smirk of hers. Then the smirk fades and she gives me an unimpressed glare. "Can you _not_ throw a temper tantrum right now?"

She runs off, but… _What?_ What temper tantrum? That was… a completely normal response! Wasn't it? I mean, I'm not even kicking up a fuss! If anything, _she's_ the one-

"Hurry up!" Emma calls out, already at our designated camel.

Still utterly confused about what I supposedly did wrong, I nonetheless make my way over to her, but can't help but break into a fit of childish giggles at her attempts to hop up on the camel. Emma is short – like, _really_ short. If Junior wasn't here she'd probably be the shortest racer out of everyone. As such, attempting to mount an animal as tall as a camel while it's still standing up is near impossible for her.

Not letting this opportunity pass me by, I take a picture of us, me up front and her in the background trying (and failing) to climb her way up the camel's side.

She hears the click of the shutter and stops moving. "You know, it'd be absolutely _wonderful_ if you could help me out right now instead of taking selfies."

Pocketing my phone, I walk the rest of the way to her. "Aw, I didn't think you _knew_ how to ask for help!"

"Hardy-har-har, can we just get on with this?"

Crouching down, I lift her by the foot and help her up on the camel's back, then easily follow right after her. We sit there for a couple of moments, neither of us saying a word while Emma tries everything to get the camel to begin moving.

"How… How do you even start this thing?" she asks aloud, looking down around its sides as if looking for an 'on' switch.

"What if you kick its sides and click your tongue?" I offer helpfully, knowing fully well she'd refuse to try it. "Like a horse."

"I know you're used to doing that, but this isn't horseback riding," she says, just as I predicted. "Camels are completely different creatures that-"

I interrupt her by kicking its sides with my heels and clicking my tongue. The camel made a low grumbling noise and started moving on its own.

Emma, surprised by the sudden movement, turns back to glare at me. I could only grin.


	4. Stew

_4\. Stew_

"Chug! Chug! Chug!"

Emma stops drinking the stew and, as has become common, shoots a glare my way. "Can you _not?_ I'll do this at my own pace."

"What ever happened to going as fast as you can?" I ask in a playful-slash-mocking manner. "I mean, a million bucks, am I right?"

"Right, let me just accidentally inhale this concoction from going too fast, then get back to me when I'm drowning from it."

"Woo!" I yell, ignoring her sarcasm and startling her. "C'mon Emma, you can do it!" She shakes her head and rolls her eyes, and goes right back to drinking.

Emma's always been the 'serious' one. Growing up, she almost never bothered to do anything but study and read. Even when my friends and I offered to hang out with her, or asked her to go play games with us, or invited her out to movies or _something_ that didn't involve being nose-deep into books, she'd always refuse and go back to learning about _whatever_ it was she wanted to learn about. Chances are it was still law, even back in seventh grade.

Now, we're both reasonably mature adults (more or less) and even then she _still_ finds ways to literally be 'The Most Boring Person On Earth'. Like, seriously, she needs to go out and have some fun, something that doesn't involve reading about _courtrooms_ and _prosecutors_ and other boring stuff like that. If only she'd let me take her to a party, _then_ she'd finally know what a waste her life has been up to this point!

Emma chokes all of a sudden and lowers the bowl to cough. "Something tells me we chose the wrong spices," she says in between hacking up a lung.

"'We'?" I repeat with a tilt of my head. "But didn't _you_ choose all the spices?"

Emma stops her coughing to scowl at me.

"Which, you know, is totally okay because I would've ended up choosing even worse ones," I continue without missing a beat. She merely gives me a flat look and resumes her drinking.

There wasn't much left in the bowl, though, and after a few more seconds of chugging she wipes her mouth and raises the dish above her head. "Done!" she declares at the camera crew, who give us the thumbs up to continue on.

We grin and Emma drops the bowl, but then _the_ weirdest chain reaction I've ever had the misfortune of witnessing begins to happen. Owen, his face redder than an erupting volcano, screams for water and rushes over to a camel to drink its spit. _That_ in itself is gross enough, but then Chet pukes into his mouth at the sight of it, before Lorenzo forces him to swallow it. Then Crimson barfs from _that_ , followed by Spud, and finally Emma, having saw it all with me.

Multiple people throwing chunks all at once is _also_ pretty gross, but I'd like to think I have an iron stomach, so I don't do the same. Emma doubles over to get rid of her stew and, seeing my chance, I take a picture of her and me, making sure to give a shocked look to the camera. The caption 'So gross! Big sis is puking everywhere!' comes to mind, with at least half a dozen emojis in it as well. I gotta remember to post this one soon.

I put my phone away and wait for Emma to control herself. She stands up soon after and wipes the leftovers from her mouth. "Feeling any better?" I ask sincerely, although I couldn't help but smile at the mishap.

"Just peachy," she mumbles. "Although I could _so_ use a mint or two right now."

"Good thing you won't be kissing anyone for a while."

She groans and doesn't give me the benefit of a glare. "Yeah, that's _so_ going to happen in the middle of a race. Let's just go."

"Aye-aye, Captain, lead the way."

As we run, I begin to think. Really, the whole reason she's so uptight nowadays is because of her ex, Jake, dumping her three years ago. I mean, sure, she was still a force to be reckoned with back in junior high, but nowhere _near_ as much of one as she is now. Because of the breakup, she's pretty much put walls up all around her and barely trusts anyone anymore, even her little sister! Which is _totally_ bogus, 'cuz I'm a very trustworthy person! I just... tend to appreciate the small things in life!

Hm... I wonder if there's some way to get Emma to open up a bit more while we're here? A new experience like this makes for the perfect chance to do that. I should keep my eyes peeled!


	5. Chill

_5\. Chill_

"Eleventh?!" Emma shouts at Don.

"Yes, that's what I said," he replies coolly. "And no, I won't be bringing all of the teams back to Toronto so you can try again. The Ice Dancers already tried that when they placed third."

Emma huffs out a breath and folds her arms. She was totally going to ask.

We walk further into the Chill Zone, away from the Carpet at Don's request. Emma's still in a sour mood, and probably won't let up until she has her way. Maybe I can try to calm her down?

"You know, eleventh out of eighteen isn't that bad," I say.

"Isn't that bad?!" she echoes, rounding on me. Maaaybe I shouldn't have tried to calm her down.

"Well, I mean-"

"It's less than half, Kit! _Half!_ We're in the bottom half of the placings now!"

"But we can still-"

"We're at a serious disadvantage now, and one wrong move can mean our elimination!"

"I think that was the case even before we-"

"No more excuses! You need to start doing more!"

Oh, so this is _my_ fault now? Like hell it is. "I _want_ to!" I finally say in a shout, stopping her in her rant. "I _want_ to help, but you won't let me! You didn't let me help choose the spices, and you went ahead and declared yourself the stew drinker without my input! Please, _please_ , just let me help out next time!"

Emma stays quiet, her seething on the point of breaking. For a second, it looked like she was _actually_ considering her options, but the moment passed and she stood her ground. "I'll tell you when to help. The _only_ time you help is when I tell you. _Got it?_ "

She doesn't wait for an answer before turning on her heel and stalking away. That's just like her – give her logical evidence that goes against her own, and she'll ignore it and declare her words the ones with higher priority, superior over everyone else's.

When she graduates, she's either going to be the worst lawyer or the best.

The confrontation leaves me upset, which is not something I enjoy being, so I turn to the best distraction I have and take out my phone. Selfies are _always_ a great way to forget about the bad and focus on the good. I hold it up and smile, but the smile fades when I accidentally get Emma in the shot. I take the pic either way, mainly because the photographer in me didn't want to pass up such a decent angle. I may end up deleting it later when sorting through all of these, but whatever.

Whatever… Yeah, whatever! I shouldn't be moping now! I'm in _Morocco_ of all places! Sure, the sun's burning me alive and I'm sweating like a student during finals, but that's no reason to be upset! I should be enjoying myself! Like, seriously, when am I _ever_ going to go to a desert again?! I need to be taking pictures of this place! Ooh, maybe some of the others would take some with me! _That_ would be fun!

Geoff and Brody are nearby, relaxing underneath a tree and happily chatting with each other. They seem nice enough – I'll go ask them!


End file.
